Barcelona’s 2015 Mobile World Congress: what to expect?

The 2015 Mobile World Congress (MWC) will take place from 2 to 5 March in Barcelona. This is the biggest annual mobile phone exhibition, so usually big companies announce their brand new products at the event. In any case, AppFutura will be there to keep you up to date.

Rumoured announcements

Like every year, the most important firms in the mobile market will show off their new products at MWC. We expect to see lots of smartphones, smartwatches, tablets and wearables there.

At last year’s edition, Samsung announced the Samsung Galaxy S5, so rumour has it this time they will announce its successor, presumably called Samsung Galaxy S6. Rumours also point out that the upcoming model will have a bold new metallic design and a pin-sharp QHD display. There's also talk of a second variant with a curved edge, like the Samsung Galaxy Note Edge. The South-Korean brand could also launch another smartwatch, the Samsung Orbis. This round smartwatch would have wireless charging and a rotating dial that would allow users to do everything from skip music tracks, accept and reject calls and scroll through pages of apps and widgets more easily.

From HTC, we expect the successor to HTC One M8. Early reports suggest that the One M9 could look like the One M8, but with a stylish metal redesign, a 20.7 megapixel camera with OIS and a lot of component upgrades and new features. Some sources also point towards a 5.2-inch HTC One (M9) Plus with a fingerprint scanner. By the way, HTC hasn’t launched any smartwatch yet, so this could be the perfect time to finally do it. And if rumours are right, everything points out that it will be a fitness orientated smartwatch.

Huawei already revealed at another event that they will show off a new range of premium tablets, and they also announced that they will feature three new wearables. For the moment, we know that at least one of them will be an Android Wear smartwatch and another one will be a follow-up to last year's TalkBand B1 (a device which pairs a wrist-based activity tracker with a pop out Bluetooth headset). But we still don’t know what kind of device will be the third mysterious wearable.

One recent rumour suggests that LG won’t bring its new flagship to MWC 2015. It seems that the company wants to wait until a full year has passed from the launch of the LG G3, so we would be talking about a May 2015 release at the earliest. The LG G3 is still considered an awesome smartphone, so it makes sense that they want to wait a bit until the new launch. All we know is the new phone will be called LG G4, because LG already revealed the name. About the new model, it looks like it’s going to have the same basic QHD display and Snapdragon 810 CPU as the rest of Android great devices, and that it will incorporate a Samsung Galaxy Note-like stylus. The point is that it might be not so interesting for LG to enter the phablet sector (the G3 is already 5.5 inches). On the other hand, LG is not totally happy with the G3 design, so they will probably give a metallic finish, with a more premium-feeling, to the LG G4. LG has already launched two Android Wear smartwatches (the G Watch and the G Watch R), but like Samsung and HTC, LG could also announce a new smartwatch at MWC 2015 (called by some people the LG G Watch R2), which could come with 4G connectivity.

Motorola will unveil a follow-up to last year's super-budget Moto E. The new version, the Moto E 2, will include a front-facing camera.

About Microsoft, it seems that Nokia and Windows Phone won’t be present at the congress. Microsoft won’t announce the successor to Nokia Lumia 930, but they might release two other new Microsoft smartphones, and some have suggested that they could run the company’s brand new OS, Windows 10. Microsoft hasn't launched Windows 10 yet (the release date is expected for later this year), so this could be an early preview of Windows 10 running on a smartphone. The firm could also show off a new wearable.

Last news about Sony reveal that, probably, they won’t announce the Sony Xperia Z4 at MWC 2015 after all. Some talks say Sony could miss the MWC and wait until summer to unveil their new flagship phone. The Sony Xperia Z3 is only a few months old, so in fact we can’t expect anything very different for the new model. But we could see a new Android Wear smartwatch or an update of the Xperia Z2 Tablet.

For now, these are some of the announcements and releases we are eager to see at MWC 2015; AppFutura will be in Barcelona to check first-hand how many of these rumours come true.